Where Do You Stand?

Our President and CEO Cathy Dunkin is not only Standing’s fearless leader, she’s also a kick-butt hockey player. How good is she? Good enough to co-host, along with former St. Louis Blues player Kelly Chase, the  “Ladies & Left Wings” hockey basics training event on Saturday, March 29th at the Scottrade Center.

If you’re a hockey fan of the female persuasion and want to learn more about the fastest game on ice, or you just want Cathy to teach you how to knock someone into the boards, check it out!

After reading Overcoming Hypocrisy, I can completely understand and empathize with Melissa’s concern about finding the time to blog. It’s a common response to social media – at least for me and others who aren’t addicted. And not finding the time in no way influences my respect for anyone not blogging. I imagine even if you haven’t had the concern yourself, if you are a PR practitioner, you’ve likely heard it from those in your organization or your clients. Perhaps this tip for battling the time crunch from blogger and consultant will work for you … equip your spokespeople with a mini digital recorder or have them call into your voice mail and share their thoughts, which can be done from almost anywhere. You can then transcribe and post them. This tip can also help with people who are keyboard-challenged, as well as those who aren’t conversational when writing.

P.S. This post serves a dual purpose … it also showcases why I love working at Standing. Where else could I call a member of the management team a hypocrite? Yes … I was the culprit. Probably not the best career move, although I did ask if it was ok if I called her a name before I did it. To say I was joking isn’t necessarily accurate, although it definitely wasn’t malicious. It was a slightly calculated move intended to prod her into blogging – she loves a challenge and I was banking on her loving it enough to forgive me for being a little blunt. Also, she is, after all, the one who nudged most of the Standing Partnership team into the social media arena – without the push we would not be gaining an expertise in leveraging the tools for our clients, and we definitely wouldn’t be here blogging. Considering that, I was really just returning the favor. And to me, the freedom to be so honest and her willingness and graciousness to accept the challenge is the ultimate sign of respect – both given and received.

I’m so excited to share my favorite pair of shoes with everyone. I know…pretty cool, right? Don’t we all need a pair of ruby sequin tennis shoes? Yes…yes we do! And here’s why: our team was discussing in a recent client relationship meeting the importance of spending time in our clients’ environments to help us do an even better job of understanding their needs and supporting their strategic communications efforts.

But, let’s face it…walking the halls can be challenging in this digital, technology enabled world we live in. Honestly, how many times today have you emailed the person in the office next to you? So, we “kicked” around several ideas on how we might encourage our team members to get away from their email and look for more opportunities to connect.

The good news is that we’re a creative, fun-loving and competitive bunch, so we sent our resident shopper out to find the ugliest pair shoes. (Nice job, Maria!) The shoes were appropriately mounted, and the “Walking the Halls Champion” award was born. The award will be passed from team to team to celebrate those champions among us who “walk in their client’s shoes.”  Of course, now that I write this, I can’t help but wonder: should we have considered moccasins? Stay tuned…you never know where those shoes might end up!

Recently I was called a hypocrite by one of my colleagues. My reaction? Damn, she’s right (although she still says she was joking). Shame on me! I’ve been on the social media bandwagon for nearly two years: watching conversations, commenting on blogs, experimenting with the tools, talking with some of the thought leaders—and encouraging (or strong arming, as some probably felt) my team to embrace the new technologies and sense of community. But, I’ve never attempted to blog myself.  So I have to ask myself, what kind of a role model am I? Truth be told, I’ve offered up a million and one reasons for not having blogged yet (my favorite is simply not having enough time). I mean where do you find the extra minutes to document thoughts and musings between work, car pools, dinner, kids’ homework, housework—and oh, I forgot, sleep. After all, aren’t there just 24 hours in a day?

So here it is… my first blog post. I’ve let go of the excuses and resigned myself to a little less sleep so that I can gain the respect of my wonderful colleagues by “walking the walk.” Let the good times roll…

“You’ve arrived.” It’s a clever tagline on the sleeve holding my room key for the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, the site of Ragan’s Social Media for Communicators conference yesterday and today.

The night I arrive in Vegas, the tagline gets me wondering … has social media arrived for PR practitioners. (In my jet-lagged, travel-weary state I’m a little philosophical.)

Social media luminaries like Shel Holtz, who is sharing his expertise in several conference sessions, have been blogging about using social media tools for corporate communication and practicing what they preach for years, but has it become mainstream?

Judging by the conference crowd … maybe. Ragan says they were expecting 300 attendees … there are 650 of us.

As blogger and podcaster Steve Crescenzo said in a session yesterday, social media is here to stay, and we (communicators) need to learn how to use it the right way.

Have you arrived at that realization yet? Watch for more posts on what I’m learning at the conference.

Sue Shellenbarger this week in the Wall Street Journal wrote that companies like AT&T, Intel and Hewlett-Packard are bringing employees back into the office, often after those employees have worked off-site successfully for several years. As a result, some are quitting.

Darn – and just this week our team at Standing Partnership proved it’s efficient and effective to allow our employees to work from anywhere – and still maintain a high level of client service.

We’ve suffered through a long, freezing winter … lots of snow, ice and sleet, with most of it falling during rush hours. We don’t want anyone to be out driving when it’s not safe. However, our commitment to client service means we must be available 24/7.

Some of our recent investments in technology and training allow everyone on our team to work at home (or at Starbucks or wherever) with complete access to their office desktops.

And this week, during a major snowstorm, it worked beautifully.

On inclement days, our leadership team connects early in the morning, then notifies everyone via office-wide voicemail if we’re going to close. I confess I hate my role as “school superintendent,” which requires determining if the weather people may be right or wrong, how bad things may get during the day and whether to open the office or not. Nevertheless on all such days by 6 a.m., we decide what to do and leave the message: “We’re open!” “We’re closed!” “Come in on the snow schedule.”

Frankly, this year we’ve guessed wrong about the weather every time.

So, kudos to our team when we were incorrect again and decided this week’s storm wouldn’t be a big one. Each person took personal responsibility for his or her own work and safety – deciding individually about coming into the office or working from home using our improved technology. We kept everything going without a hitch. “Standing South,” “Standing Northwest” and “Standing Central” all functioned across the St. Louis region, and we communicated easily with our clients, with each other, and with our Charlottesville, Va., office.

As a side note, I had meetings outside the office all day. None cancelled, so I spent my day soaking wet, cleaning 10 inches of snow off my car, and finally stuck behind a stranded bus. Some things you just have to do in person, unfortunately.

How does your company handle inclement weather? What about telecommuting? We’re committed to it, even if it’s not fashionable any more!

It’s the time of year when Standing Partnership requests feedback from our clients about our performance during the previous year. We distribute a client satisfaction survey and  encourage participation from all our clients, even those with whom we no longer work.The results of our survey help us to learn and grow, improve areas that need attention and focus on how we can serve our clients better.This year, the survey has had an unexpected result. Surprisingly, after filling our our survey, two clients I work with  picked up the phone and asked if we can do a survey for them; one wants us to manage their employee satisfaction survey and another wants us to survey their customers.I’m thrilled to gain this new business with these clients, but happier still that leading by example has inspired them to take advantage of a previously untapped service from the many we already offer their businesses.